Entries from November 2012

November 30, 2012

This post was written as an assignment for Professor
Brynn Saito's multi-genre MFA-level writing workshop, WRC 7093. In this class,
students produce new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, while reflecting on their
lives, influences, and processes as artists and writers.

Can creativity be taught? Absolutely!

We would not expect a
surgeon to make the opening incision without extensive training and practice; why
should the opening line of a novel be any different?

I blame the “mysterium
tremendum” surrounding the entire artistic process on the Greek myth of
creativity as a divine gift from the Muses. If it originates outside the self,
outside our consciousness, even outside the realm of humanity, how can it
possibly be taught?

Like priests reading mass in
Latin, creativity and writing are believed to belong to an exclusive and
esoteric realm, where common people should remain silent and respectful.

This leads us to think that
writing is such a rarified, transcendent or alien experience that no
preparation, no environment, no mentors could possibly make a difference. Even
on the websites of MFA programs in writing, I find rampant allusions to this
preposterous notion that writing cannot be taught.

Having previously completed
an internship as a psychotherapist, I know it is possible to teach and
cultivate qualities such as vulnerability, compassion, and self-reflection. Bio-feedback training can bring previously autonomic processes under direct
control. Brain plasticity research teaches us that new synapses and neural
pathways can indeed be constructed.

When I studied Mandarin
Chinese, it was certainly slower than learning French—about four times slower—but
it didn’t require an intervention from the Muses. Teaching math may be quite different
from teaching interpretive dance, but any training in dance will lead to
greater flexibility, poise, and control, and so it is with writing. It’s a practice where peers, expectations, and one’s
community all make a big difference...

Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, offers the magic formula of
10,000 hours of practice required to develop mastery. It's simply not realistic
to expect “mastery” to be produced by any one program; 10,000 hours is more
like 10 years of effort. Why then, such unrealistic goals for the cultivation
of creativity?

I admire people who sit down
and just write, without any drama. However, that’s just alien to me. Writing is
something I resist or avoid, like arrest or an STD. Unfortunately for me,
procrastination and perfectionism are like two schoolyard bullies, who I was
never able to shake, even after all these years. One reason alone that
justifies being in a writing class or program is deadlines.

For example, today was a day
off from work. My plan was to start by writing the blog you are now reading.
That didn’t exactly happen.

After sleeping in and
“breakfasting” at noon, I immediately scheduled a haircut, packed my car full
of dirty laundry, and headed to the laundromat via car wash. When I eventually
got home, there were dishes to do, a presidential debate to watch, a video game
to finish and other important non-writing tasks. At 10pm, after my self-scheduled
2-10 pm writing “shift” was over, I turned on the computer. Thankfully, this
writing assignment had a deadline of midnight. For people like me, deadlines
are the only things that transform inspiration into actual words.

I’ll take a
hard-working-community of fellow writers, a structure of built-in deadlines,
and critical feedback/support from mentors over the unteachable myth of divine
inspiration any day.

November 29, 2012

This is the first entry in a series of interviews by Jessica Juliao and Collette McGruder, both emerging photographers and CIIS students. They will be interviewing artists whose works are featured in the exhibition En Foco/In Focus, selections from the first permanent photography collection in the country dedicated to U.S.- based artists of Latin American, African, Asian, and Native American heritage. The exhibition opens for the first time on the West Coast on Jan. 22, 2013, at CIIS.

Collette recently had the opportunity to catch up with artist Ricky Flores to discuss New York, the history of his work, and the ever-changing voice of photography in our visual culture.

My obsession with New York began when I discovered the city on a
map in my mother’s little black telephone book. New York City, geographically
small compared to most states, clearly demanded exaggeration; it had its
own area code (only one then) and occupied an enlarged pop-out on the map. This was my first indication that something special was happening there;
it would take me 22 years to finally be a part of it.

By the time I got there the 212 prefix I coveted had given way to
917 and the still unpopular 347. Cell phones were taking over and the
city’s unwritten code of conduct was changing: dancing had become illegal,
smoking in bars was following not too far behind and the grittiness of the
so-called mean streets had turned to dust. Where was my Looking for Mr. Goodbar/Wild Style New York? Even the porn
theaters had given way to the giant ferris wheel of Toys”R”Us as the new crown
jewel of Times Square.

So it is no wonder upon seeing the work of photojournalist Ricky
Flores, I became nostalgic for a time in New York I had never really known. Flores knew this time; he grew up in it. His experience is real and
tender and goes beyond my Midwestern-based romanticized longing for old New York. Flores photographs offer a thoughtful perspective from a young Puerto
Rican man living in the South Bronx during the 1970s.

CM: The piece in the exhibition, FDNY Dispatch: Is There a
Fire OverThere? illustrates what you describe on your website as
"planned shrinkage," a policy wherein police and fire services were
withdrawn from areas in hopes of decreasing the population. In the image Carlos
andBoogie, we
see a beautiful and seemingly fun life moment—uniquely New
York—between two men on the subway system. Looking at these images
I can’t help but think of your iconic image from 9/11. These images all remind me of my years in New
York and how just being there, from the everyday of shuffle between boroughs to
dealing with the aftermath of September 11, continues to inform
the way I see the world. Can you describe for us what your experience was
like during this time and what motivated you to document the moments featured
in these two images?

RF: There are many places in the world but not many have an
iconic image like that of New York City. During the time that I was
photographing my community, I did so with the knowledge that I was witnessing
and participating in a profound change in the landscape of the city. What
started out as a simple thing of photographing my friends and family became
something more simply by the context and time that it took place.

Initially, I used photography as a way to discover who I
was as a young Puerto Rican descendent living on the streets of the South
Bronx. I was, like many of my friends from my community, a creation of two very
distinct cultures forged by history and circumstance. Photography was the tool
that helped me bridge the two cultures and allowed me to further understand the
history of Puerto Ricans in the United States, and to begin to question the
political and social ramifications of being of Puerto Rican descent.

Photographing my community, coupled with the turbulent and
violent transformation of the landscape around us, galvanized me to document what
was taking place around me. It wasn't an atypical experience to photograph a
fire taking place on our block on any given day, just like it wasn't atypical
to take photos of kids playing in the park or on the street or in some
abandoned building. It was a commonplace experience for us. It
always struck us as funny when people would express some horror when we would
relate a tale from the block or just simply state that we were from the South
Bronx. A social stigma was instantly attached to that pronouncement, one
that continues to take place even today.

It was in that context that I took many of my photographs,
what might look like an amazing collection of photos of the South Bronx in
upheaval was simply my personal photos of my friends and my family.

Ricky Flores, Carlos and Boogie, silver gelatin print, 1982

CM: As a photographer, I have a great deal of respect for
journalistic and street photography; I believe it takes a great deal of nerve
and determination
to pursue subjects and shoot on the spot with candor. Walk
us through your process for deciding when a moment becomes one worth documenting. Has this process ever landed you
in an uncomfortable
situation with your subjects? Was there ever a moment you
wanted to document but chose not to do so?

November 28, 2012

This post was written as an assignment for Professor Brynn Saito's multi-genre MFA-level writing workshop, WRC 7093. In this class, students produce new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, while reflecting on their lives, influences, and processes as
artists and writers.

I hadn't heard of his name before, or who he was, or what he was doing; Cindy Shearer, program chair of CIIS' MFA department, had indeed sent an email inviting MFA students to the rehearsal of Alonzo King's latest work under production. I wasn't interested and I didn't go. In fact, Cindy's Saturday Night @ CIIS event postcard announced tonight's program well in advance, which didn't make much of a difference to me then.

And so I walked into Namaste Hall, and surveyed the
refreshments MFA program coordinator, Theresa Newman, had relentlessly
organized for the evening. My eyes searched for her to confirm which one was
vegetarian, as I couldn't identify a dish which looked like one. Alonzo had
arrived by that time and was chatting with Cindy and others while I sank into a
chair and resigned myself to another session, and mercifully the last, after a
long day of workshopping.

Cindy did exceedingly well moderating the event; obviously,
she was having a blast, as she mentioned later. It was evident she was an
admirer of Alonzo's work and has been closely following his work as the
artistic director of the Lines Ballet. She
asked several questions pertaining to his art, his ballet company, the
collaborators and performances and his upcoming programs.

The responses from Alonzo were phenomenal. Whatever the
questions were, Alonzo returned to one answer; the philosophy, or more
precisely, the spirituality of art. While the audience wanted to hear more
about the ladder he used to reach the artistic heights, Alonzo was actually
describing what art feels like after you reach the peak. Hearing him speak
about his relationship with art, the capacity for unconditional love for art,
the difference between making, doing and being, and the importance of falling
and getting up quickly, I could see what he was talking about: something
religion and spirituality have been talking about over the centuries: a
capacity to "Know Thyself."

When the event was over I felt the urge to get up and go
talk to him. At the same time, I didn't want to go. He had said all that he had
to say and I had heard what I wanted to hear. Meeting in person became
irrelevant. The regret that I didn't go and watch his gracious movements during
the rehearsal disappeared.

I just lingered on, unmindful of time, my bus to King and 4th,
and the need to catch the 2015 Caltrain to go home.

November 26, 2012

By KAISA PUHAKKA, professor in the Clinical Psychology Department at CIIS

Psychodynamic practice is making a comeback thanks to a recent surge in empirical research supporting it (see for example Jonathan Shedler's 2010 article in APA's The American Psychologist). But far-reaching developments in the field have been quietly happening long before they caught the public eye.

Psychodynamic therapy today is indeed very different from what it was in Freud's time. In a forthcoming book, "That Was Then, This is Now: An Introduction to Contemporary Psychodynamic Therapy," Shedler details recent changes in the field. To me the most fascinating developments are the active presence of the “unconscious” and the shift from authoritarian delivery of interpretations by therapist to patient to a more collaborative work between the two as practiced in contemporary relational psychodynamic approaches. These developments open a meeting ground for psychodynamic and other holistic approaches such as existential and phenomenological psychotherapies, which rejected the Freudian theory of the unconscious. They also open the door for exchanges with spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and its sophisticated meditative techniques for deepening access to the unconscious.

Now what is it that psychodynamic therapists do? Freud used to call ours an “impossible profession,” and certainly it is impossible to answer this question briefly. Just for starters, they do a lot of deep listening, which is an extraordinary skill that's being honed throughout the training of psychodynamic therapists and usually keeps developing in depth and refinement even after formal training. It takes more than the ordinary ear to listen deeply, which is why Theodore Reik long ago named it “listening with the third ear.” Deep listening tunes not just into what the person knows about themselves but also what they don't know and perhaps don't want to know about themselves. The latter especially is important because very likely nobody ever listened to it before. It may be communicated by words not intended, by gestures and body language, and by something even more subtle and difficult to name that therapists sense to the extent that they are open to sensing it.

This takes me back to the importance of training and cultivation of the extraordinary skill of listening. For this skill to deepen, the therapists in training need to turn their “third ear” toward their own interior to learn to sense in the moment what otherwise would pass unnoticed in their response to the patient. In contemporary psychodynamic therapy, the boundary between the conscious and the unconscious is permeable, and some of what happens in the process between therapist and patient is communicated directly without conscious verbal mediation. Buddhist meditative practices, such as mindfulness-based stress-reduction, have been adapted as simple techniques for the benefit of patients in mainstream symptom reduction approaches. In psychodynamic therapy, it is first and foremost the therapists who benefit from Buddhist meditation in deepening their attunement to their own as well as the patient's interior processes.

November 20, 2012

By
ADA SEINE KAI, a student in the Writing and Consciousness MFA program at CIIS. She received her MA in East-West Psychology and splits her time between writing poetry and sharing poetry through movement and myth in the yoga sessions she leads. She lives in San Francisco, where she is working on her first book of poems.

This post was written as an assignment for
professor Brynn Saito's multi-genre MFA-level writing workshop, WRC 7093. In
this class, students produce new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, while
reflecting on their lives, influences, and processes as artists and writers.

I know better than to judge
a book by its cover, but I’ve met some life-changing poems after judging them
on their titles. I knew I was going to like Joy Harjo’s prose-poem "Grace" the moment my eye
caught that word. Grace, so soft and unassuming, is packed with the grating
feeling of masculine power-over and divine withholding. I remember too many
hell-talks on Sunday to be able to think of grace as meaning much besides: I am
doing it all wrong. Other traditions helped me soften to the concept some, but
that early imprint—as they tend to do—stuck.

The need for resolution and
the promise of emotional depth drew me into the poem. It helped to know that
Harjo is of both Western European and Native American descent (Cherokee and
Creek). As a young feminist of similarly mixed origin (Shawnee and Irish), I
resonate strongly with her indigenous voice and use of natural symbols. The
first lines of Grace are bold and elegant. “I think of Wind and her wild
ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country
of the fox.” She plainly says what she wants to say; there are no contrived
line breaks or mechanisms to toy with us.

The whole poem is right
there. Harjo unpacks it with a bit of narrative arc, but the meaning is ours
for the taking, if we like. It is an invitation, on our terms. These lines
define an ambivalent relationship with grace, and they express a complexity
between the invisible and visible world that is developed later in the poem. At
once there is a heart-breaking depth of pain alongside the lightness of
language that perfectly captures the empowered experience of grace. “We had to
swallow the town with laughter, so it would go down easy, like honey.” It
is a tough choice, but it is still their choice.

As a perpetual outsider,
Harjo provides insight into how we see ourselves as women from culture to
culture. From her poem, "Book of Myths":

There is Helen in every
language; in American her name is Marilyn / but in my subversive country, / she
is dark earth and round and full of names / dressed in bodies of women / who
enter and leave the knife wounds of this terrifyingly / beautiful land; / we
call ourselves ripe and pine tree woman.

The sensuality of earth,
nature, and roundness provide images that empower women away from the violent
and oppressive symbolism of patriarchal systems that might call a beautiful
woman, say, a bombshell blonde with killer legs. What does it take to live in
that subversive country? It definitely takes bravery to change our word choice
and meaning-making systems. And it must also take a little bit of crazy to
provide that unique perspective in the first place.

The poems cited here are
from the collection of poems “She Rises Like the Sun,” edited by Janine Canan.
Joy Harjo's memoir, “Crazy Brave” came out this summer. For more on Joy Harjo’s music, writings, and poetic
adventures visit her blog.

November 19, 2012

This post was written as an assignment for Professor Brynn Saito's multi-genre MFA-level writing workshop, WRC 7093. In this class, students produce new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, while reflecting on their lives, influences, and processes as artists and writers.

Since my first blog on knitting, published on September 20, I have continued my meditations. In fact, after the initial post, I had the opportunity to listen to some classmates, many of whom were experiencing difficult times in their personal lives. I was amazed at how well they were coping with their adversities. One student said something to the effect that sometimes relationships change beyond our control.

Because the image of the mixed fiber scarf was so fresh in my mind, my thoughts came back to it... in the case of knitting, whether using mixed fibers or not, sometimes we need to let the yarn dictate itself; but even then, we have patterns to give us structure and no matter what happens in the end, it’s still part of the tapestry of our lives.

The images below are all in simple garter stitch but with different yarns:

November 16, 2012

By LAURA TOWNE, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

I’m the first to admit I’m a book nerd. I actually get excited about looking things up in the dictionary and hours magically slip by when I crack open my atlas. I have way too many books for someone my age. At last count, there were 402 books in my personal library, but that number has surely grown since then. They occupy four bookcases—no small feat in a tiny Bay-area one-bedroom—and when I am deep in my creative process, they overflow to stacks beside my bed and on my desk, sometimes taking up more space on the couch than I do. It’s reassuring just to have their energy near me—I am a collector of books because it’s the closest I can get to the people who wrote them.

There are books on yoga, dreaming, intuition, poetry, shamanism, astrology, Buddhism, art, reincarnation, ayurveda, astronomy, physics, mythology, energy healing, writing, gardening, tantra, entheogens, sacred geometry, metaphysics, spirituality...as well as novels and practical books about tangible things like 101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions. I could keep going, but you get the idea. Clearly, CIIS is the right school for me. Before moving to the Bay area to attend CIIS, I was the only person I knew with such an eclectic collection of books, a fact I kept hidden most of the time, as if spirituality was a secret I was afraid to admit. Now, a year and a quarter into earning my master’s degree in Writing and Consciousness, I am surrounded by people immersed in these subjects—so immersed that we often pause to laugh at ourselves: when did we become these people that “hold space” and talk about “the divine feminine” and say “hold on a minute, let me get back in my body”? (I’m delighted to know we aren’t the only ones laughing at ourselves – check out this video.)

November 15, 2012

By MELANIE TORMOS, second year student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

Be proud of who you are, reads my Yogi Tea flag. I admit that I sometimes look to these tiny words for guidance;these Chinese fortune cookies of these post-modern mystic times. Illumination radiates from mundane places.

Who am I?

Female. Heterosexual. White. Slavic. Puerto Rican. Student. Artist. Teacher. Yogi. Sister. Daughter. Employee. Business Owner. Ego. Soul. The list of labels ticks on and on, and yet I don’t find an answer to my question. The list is convenient. It is inaccurate, even as it tries to constellate my identity into a definitive shape. The brittle connections between the labels feels without flesh, without warmth, making me reach for cup after cup of tea. My inquiry has become a quest to get to the deep roots of image as it relates to my body, my heart, my mind, my spirit. I have challenged myself with the task of translating the sensual creature that is my body into paint marks and color, into pattern and texture. I bridge worlds with art-making, feeling it necessary to explore why our society hungrily consumes the image, but cannot be satisfied by the skeletal, stripped-down meanings often assigned to it.

I am by way of connection, and I am by way of distinction. Myprocess of art-making has become a way of mapping out those pathways and boundaries. While my experience of this world is porous, I still claim the power to be the gatekeeper of my own borders. Creating a piece of artwork is a way to honor the territory before it changes, and to honor the inevitability that it will, indeed, change. Each piece gives me a moment of recentering, crystallizing the liminality of being.

By AARON ROSE, second year student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

I came to the MFA program with a dream and a vision: to become a writer of fiction, and to create a ceremonial practice that reclaims art as sacred ritual for individual and collective transformation and healing.

Coming of age in the 60s and early 70s, I am a child of the generation that came careening out of convention, dazzled by glimpses of the Age of Aquarius.

My own rebirth, a radical and traumatic process, required a 40-year journey of deep personal healing and repatterning, finding along the way a like-hearted community of seekers who found home in ancient wisdom and medicine ways carried by indigenous brothers and sisters throughout the world. From the ones who walk in harmony with the Earth, I adopted a cosmology and container of love and knowing that supports every aspect of my life.

Seven years ago, I stood on a street in a west side Chicago neighborhood, asking if I might create a work of art that would propel the social justice to which I had dedicated my passion and professional career. What came to me from the collective unconscious was an idea, a story that has become my novel-in-progress, “Lawndale,” about place, race, and healing the past to midwife the future.

Making the decision to enter the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts program, I thought that dedication to my spiritual vision and the service of community building would support my heart’s desire: to write a novel.

After a year of attempting to think my way toward creating a ceremonial arts practice, three weeks ago, on the Autumn Equinox, the beating of my heart called me back to center: to the writer I am and to the novel I had taken such pains to birth. Now focused on nurturing “Lawndale,” I realize that clarity on the journey toward serving community will come when I am aligned with my primary soul purpose.

November 07, 2012

By NANCI PRICE SCOULAR, second year student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

I am currently
reading Mark Doty’s "Heaven’s Coast," his
memoir on losing his beloved partner to HIV/Aids in the mid-1990s. Ever-tuned to “insight(s) from the
seemingly commonplace," Doty’s coast is a uniquely interstitial
space and a metaphor for Life as a whole. “Any shore is a meeting place of
continuous activity, of constant negotiation between earth and water, relations
shifting by the hour and season. What is land at noon may be sea at three."

Doty goes on to
comment that “(T)his shape-shifting makes the forms and aspects of things
mercurial, inconstant – as if this conjunction of elements, life on the boundary,
made things themselves restless”.

I began to look for
other artists exploring interstitial spaces. Two in particular captured my
attention, based on the diversity of their respective approach, medium and
artwork.

C Dougherty, a video
artist, writer, photographer, and blogger, photographed “unintentional
art emerge(ing) in the interstitial space that occurs between one advertisement
and the next” in the subways of New York. He caught the moments after one
poster has been torn down and before the next one replaced it.

Photo by C Dougherty

Photo by C Dougherty

Painter
Roger
Chavez takes a different approach in his current show at Ursinus College
outside Philadelphia. Titled, "Interstitial Spaces: Void and Object, Recent Works by Roger Chavez," the paintings live in
the space between portraiture and still life, creating a very atmospheric and
dreamy sense of interstitial space.

Work by Roger Chavez

Work by Roger Chavez

They are in sharp contrast to the jagged edges
and ruined images that define Dougherty’s photographs. Chavez’s paintings feel
as though they are changing in front of our eyes, despite the fact that the
brain registers dry paint.

In my own work, I am drawn to where the sea
and the sand ebb and flow. It’s a no-man’s land, constantly in flux. Conquered by the invading
ocean, then reclaimed as sand when the tide recedes, only to be invaded again
by gentle eddies until the waves regain their strength. The constant give and take is not in vain however—it erases the boundaries between two forces of nature, creating an interstitial
space of watery sand that constantly shapes and reshapes the contours of the
shoreline itself. A space that is rich in its diversity—strands of seaweed,
thousands of broken bits of shell, small pebbles, bird’s feathers and tiny
crabs.

What would my interstitial space look like?
Could I weave together different elements of myself to create such diversity
and richness? Would that comfort the immigrant’s longing for a deep sense of
home? Align more fully the responsible full-time corporate persona with the
joyously creative part-time artist? Integrate the spirit of the woman on the
land with the selkie in the sea?

As a start, I am weaving together the seawater
and sea sand as homage to "Heaven’s Coast." This is a very simple response
to the question above, and I will see where the journey takes me.